Sunday 19 July 2020

Book ~ "Their Last Secret" (2020) Rick Mofina

From Goodreads ~ Janie Klassyn was only fourteen years old when she made the blood pact with her friends. She could never imagine she was setting in motion the horrifying crime that would tear her peaceful prairie town apart. 

Twenty years later in California, school counselor Emma Grant struggles to keep her past buried. But when she finds a note on her car threatening to reveal her secret, it becomes harder to keep up the deception. Even her teenage stepdaughter suspects that Emma is hiding something. Now, with her celebrated true-crime author husband digging into a decades-old murder case for his next book, and a suspicious accident involving someone who’s been following her, the perfect life Emma’s built is crumbling, forcing her to take desperate steps to save it.

Janie, Nikki and Marie (the "Skull Sisters") were fourteen and living in Eternity, a small town in Manitoba.  Janie regularly babysat for the Tullocks and, though they were wealthy, they always shortchanged her when it came to paying her.  One night while the Tullocks were out of town, the girls decided to break into their house and steal some money so Janie could have what was owed to her.  The family came home unexpectedly and by the end of the night, the family of four were brutally murdered.  It didn't take the police long to realize that Janie, Nikki and Marie did it and they were sentenced to prison.  When they were released to start a new life, their names were changed and their records buried since they had been minors.

Twenty years later, we meet Emma who is a school counselor in California.  She is married to Ben, a successful crime writer, and stepmother to Kayla.  Suddenly there are notes left on her windshield and she suspects she is being followed and she'll do anything to keep her secret past hidden.

I've read a few books by this author and liked this one ... until I got to the end.  I didn't like the ending and thought it should have gone a different way.  I liked the writing style and it is written in third person perspective with the focus on wherever the action is.  It jumps back and forth in time, which is noted at the beginning of the chapters so you know where and when it is.

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